‘You cannot get rid of our tongue’: PEN Turkey expresses support for Kabaş, Aksu

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PEN Turkey has released a written statement and expressed support for musician Sezen Aksu, who was targeted by President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan over a song from five years ago, and journalist Sedef Kabaş, who has been arrested for "insulting the President" over her words on a TV program.

"You cannot get rid of our tongue," the statement has read in reference to the remarks of Erdoğan, who targeted Sezen Aksu at a mosque by saying, "No one can defame his holiness, Adam. It is our duty, when the time comes, to rip out the tongues of those who defame him."

PEN Turkey has said:

'We are where words fail!' It is customary to always utter this sentence when there are no more hopes and the darkness gets darker. This time, it is not like that. This time, we are where words fail and the song begins. Sezen Aksu has once again become our tongue and started our song. Our rage turns into our happiness, our tears into our laughter, our fate into our objection.

The organization has "once again cried out with all its might that it stands with the artists, writers and journalists", saying: "No one can rip out our tongue! No one can break our pen! You cannot rip out, you cannot break down, you cannot cut it out, you cannot get rid of our tongue!"

Referring to the ancient peoples and civilizations in Anatolia, especially in the context of its oral culture over the centuries, PEN Turkey has said:

We are tarred with the same brush. We are with Sezen Aksu. We find it unacceptable that Sedef Kabaş, who spoke by quoting a proverb, was detained at midnight and arrested. We condemn it and demand her immediate release.

What happened? (Sezen Aksu)

Singer Sezen Aksu was targeted by pro-government people over her song "Şahane Bir Şey Yaşamak" (Living is a wonderful thing) from the year 2017 for saying, "Say hello to the ignorant Adam and Eve..."

Applying to the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor's Office, a lawyer named Mikail Yılmaz and a group of people accompanying him filed a criminal complaint against Sezen Aksu on charge of "insulting religious values and provocation or degrading." A group of pro-government people also gathered in front of Aksu's house and staged a protest.

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chair Devlet Bahçeli also targeted Sezen Aksu in his weekly Parliamentary group meeting.

In a speech during the Friday prayers at İstanbul's Grand Çamlıca Mosque, President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also targeted Aksu, saying, "No one can defame his holiness, Adam. It is our duty, when the time comes, to rip out the tongues of those who defame him. No one can defame her holiness Eve."

Having remained silent until then, Aksu made a statement on Facebook on January 22. She thanked those who announced support for her and said, "As you know, the matter is not me, the matter is the country."

Aksu also shared the lyrics of a new song, which she said she wrote the day before. "You can't crush my tongue," she says in the song, apparently in response to Erdoğan's threats. In a short time, people on social media translated the lyrics into more than 30 languages.

What happened? (Sedef Kabaş)

Journalist Sedef Kabaş was arrested on January 22 for "insulting the President" because of her words during a live broadcast a week ago.

"There is a famous saying, 'A crowned head will get wiser.' But we see that this isn't the reality. There is also a saying that is the exact opposite: 'When cattle go into a palace, they don't become the king; the palace becomes a barn'," Kabaş said during a program on TELE1 TV on January 14.

A week later, she posted the second quote on her Twitter and Instagram accounts as a "Circassian proverb," replacing the word "cattle" with "ox."

Shortly after, at around 2 a.m. on Saturday, she was detained during a police raid. Hours later, a penal judgeship of peace remanded her in custody. (AÖ/SD)